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| - The Point of Divergence of the An Independent in 2000 Timeline is discovery of a lost little boy in Mt. Rainier National Park by Seattle couple Lisa and Forest Edwards on November 14th, 1963. Upon seeing these strangers the boy, no more than a year old and covered with dirt looking half starved, crawled toward them in an obvious effort to plead for food. Lisa Edwards immediately picked up the toddler, who was too skinny to put up any sort of fight, and turned to her husband knowing only one conclusion. They took the boy to the ranger station and asked if anyone had reported a lost child. There were no reports. Devout Christians and more than aware at how cruel the world would be to someone who would be seen as an outsider, for them being black, for the boy being without parents, elected to
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| - The Point of Divergence of the An Independent in 2000 Timeline is discovery of a lost little boy in Mt. Rainier National Park by Seattle couple Lisa and Forest Edwards on November 14th, 1963. Upon seeing these strangers the boy, no more than a year old and covered with dirt looking half starved, crawled toward them in an obvious effort to plead for food. Lisa Edwards immediately picked up the toddler, who was too skinny to put up any sort of fight, and turned to her husband knowing only one conclusion. They took the boy to the ranger station and asked if anyone had reported a lost child. There were no reports. Devout Christians and more than aware at how cruel the world would be to someone who would be seen as an outsider, for them being black, for the boy being without parents, elected to take him with them back to Seattle. A month passed and the Edwardses quickly grew to love the child. Having nursed him back to health and cleaned him up, they found that he was quite energetic and curious about anything he seemed to come in contact with. On January 15th, 1964 they decided to adopt the boy, and named him Charles Malcolm Edwards. Being Washington residents, a fairly liberal state in the 1960s, it wasn't extremely difficult to secure adoption papers for their child, though both Lisa and Forest knew how difficult it would be raising a white child as black parents, though the joy they gained from little Charlie eclipsed every fear and doubt. It wasn't long before the Edwardses noticed their son's aptitude for nearly anything he attempted. He learned to walk only two weeks after coming to Seattle, and was talking by February. By age two, he was reading at a fourth grade level, and could write full paragraphs. The couple knew they would never be able to encourage their son's gift of comprehension on their own, and so sought the help of their Church to create a savings bond for Charlie so that one day he might be able to rise above his meagre stature. The Edwardses were very much indeed poor, but knew they could not let their son's gift go to waste, and promised themselves that they would do everything in their power to give their son the opportunities that they never had. At age 4 Charlie entered School, and by the end of the day his teacher suggested that he be moved up to the fifth grade. At age 6 young Charles wrote his first real essay, on the plight of interracial families in America. The paper was so well loved by his teacher and the school that they helped him submit it for publication, where it was picked up by the Seattle Times. By age 9 Edwards had been promoted to high school as a freshmen, where he won the National Science fair for his tilt rotor helicopter concept. The victory caught the attention of UC Berkley which offered him a full ride once he left high school. At age 13 Charlie graduated High School Valedictorian and was accepted into UC Berkley where he entered into the school's Propulsion Engineering department. By his senior year Edwards had constructed a working scramjet engine prototype, and was well on his way to becoming the next great engineer. That was when disaster struck. Edwards' mother died in December of that year. After returning home and postponing his finals, young Charles soon learned the sinister nature of how his mother died. She had been diagnosed with early stage ovarian cancer in 1973. While treatable even by 1970's standards, she was denied her claim to her insurer on the theory that her disease was related to a previous illness. Lisa hid the truth from her family and for six years fought with her insurer to grant her the treatment she needed to survive, and for six years she was denied. With this knowledge Charles returned to Berkley to change his major to political science, with a new goal in mind: ensuring that the kind of injustice that befell his mother would never happen to anyone again. Now, no such child was adopted in OTL, Forest and Lisa Edwards are complete composites of just an average African American couple during the early 60s. Charles is just a gifted child, they exist, there is nothing particularly out of place with this situation, but rather the chain of events that follow that make this timeline special. After graduating from Berkley with a Ph.D. in Political Science and Propulsion Engineering, Edwards spends a year abroad and upon returning is hired to teach at Seattle University in his home state, where he meets Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos while giving a talk on civilian applications for scramjets. In 1988 with funds from Gates and Bezos, Edwards founds Seattle Dynamics, a propulsion firm that specializes in scramjets. He quickly signs a contract with the US military to develop the AGM-129 Stealth Cruise Missile. In 1989 he announces his company's IPO making him billions. Following his research into hypersonics, Edwards continues to work toward more advanced jet engines and signs a series of military contracts and research grants over the next few years. He is given a column at Newsweek's Politics section where he writes alongside George Will in his spare time. In 1992 Edwards reveals the world's first Pulse Detonation Jet Engine, a propulsion system that makes it possible for any aircraft to fly subsonically to supersonic to hypersonic on one engine while using very little fuel. The first aircraft to test this revolutionary device is the X-30 NASP. This is the act that launches Edwards into the public light, and makes him a household name. The PDE speeds the development of almost every major aircraft, from the Boeing 777 to the Air Force F-22 now the world's first hypersonic fighter jet. The V-22 Osprey receives the necessary funding in 1993 and is completed by 1999 with the PDE acting as the main power plant. Seattle Dynamics grows into a major corporation, acting as a catalyst for economic growth in Seattle, and forcing Boeing to stay in its home city instead of moving to Chicago. It is this boom in Seattle's economy that made Edward's election as the city's mayor in 1994 so easy, and it is what allowed him to foster a Dubai-esq boom in the city. Those are the moments that elevated Edwards to the national stage, and that made him a viable candidate for president in 2000.
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